Talk about brain drain… but the wine and cheese party helped debrief!

Personally I didn’t understand any of the talks in the am.  So if any one else did please share.

I went to the breakout session on massage and anxiety/depression and had some great experiences.  My favorite was between Dawn Donovan and Chris Moyer.  Dawn presented her research on Use of Massage Therapy to Reduce Anxiety and to Improve Sleep in Clients Participating in an Inpatient Withdrawal Management (Detox) Program: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

What I loved most was that it was real.  She started with saying how many billions of dollars are spent in the US and Canada on drug and alcohol rehab and issues each year.  Her study did show that massage was successful in reducing anxiety in people who were getting off of their substance.   I loved that she intuitively decided on the massage protocol which was totally different from her usual form of bodywork.  Taking into consideration the clients needs , combining intuition and science is what we need more.   I also think it was just the idea that it was on a topic that could actually be useful to massage therapists in getting and keeping clients or creating a job in massage.
Chris Moyer isn’t a massage therapist but is a researcher who loves massage.   He is another great example of being able to take massage and measure what it is doing.  He did a literature study on whether or not massage helps reduce cortisol.  Interestingly he found that it does not reduce cortisol which is very contradictory to most of the research already done in this area mainly by Tiffany Field at the Touch Research Institute.
Making research understandable is the main reason I am attending this conference.  I am also learning about why research is so important and what it can do for the massage profession.  I think one of the big challenges is taking research and turning it into something that massage therapists can use to apply to their practice which is really just about getting and keeping clients.

I was later told by Ruth Werner that I was also witness to a rare phenomenon in research with one presenter, Ross Turchinov being intensely challenged.  (I personally didn’t understand what he was trying to say or show.  The studies he did refer to were all done in the 50’s-70’s and the challenger didn’t think that there was any prior proof of what he was talking about.  His talk was “Impact of Massage Therapy on Electrophysiology of the Soft Tissue and Cellular Function”.   I might try to talk to him tomorrow to see if he could explain it more.

There are so many well known people there from all aspects of massage- Les Sweeney (ABMP), Sydney Duncan (Massage Today), someone from COMTA but I can’t remember her name right now, AMTA presidents/officers,  but hmm…. no sign of anyone from Massage Magazine.

It was such a great networking day too meeting many people who I have connected with on Facebook and www.massageprofessionals.com .   I can’t wait to show you a new project on massage research that will help you make sense of research that hopefully will be done in the fall!

Wow what a jam packed day at the Massage Therapy Foundations Highlighting Massage Therapy in Complementary and Integrative Medicine (CIM) Research conference.

There is too much to assimilate right now but the one thing I can say and already knew this – WA State is far ahead of all the other states in being accepted as a health care profession and perhaps others could be learning from what is going on here in WA.   Debra Senn was the insurance commissioner in the early 90’s who was instrumental in getting massage and other CAM providers to be a providers for health insurance companies.  She spoke at the conference today and I wish I had got a chance to meet her afterwards.   The current problem that  CAM providers (MT, Acupuncturists and others) in WA are now having is not being paid fair fees for services.  Her advice was to just hang on and bear with the system as they work things out.   It is taking time for insurance companies to really get the idea that massage can actually help save them money.  They still don’t see massage as being a replacement for things like surgery.   That is one of the main reasons I think that we need to have more research to show these companies just what it is that massage can do.   But then again WA State has accepted it without much research in place so I guess go figure…

I sat through some really interesting break out sessions of presentations of case studies and discussions that I am still trying to figure out what it all really means.   I think what case studies are used for is to help decide what research is needed next.

There were big posters in the lobby that I haven’t figured out what they are about – if they are case studies or actual research studies so hope to get to them tomorrow!

The other striking thing to me is that I think I heard the attendance count was about 350 people which is great and about 1/3 of them were from WA State.   Out of 15,000 MT state wide, that number is disappointing.  I am not sure if it because MT don’t care because we are already providers and accepted as health care professionals or what – but I do know that getting MT to rally is like herding cats.  It seems to be the same people in the leadership roles around the country.  I know most are just focused on getting and keeping clients and making a living but you could be in CA where  I here your careers are being really challenged with this Assembly Bill 1822 -For more info see Massage Today.

For the next three days I am going to be at the Highlighting Massage Therapy in Complementary and Integrative Medicine (CIM) Research” conference in Seattle!

It unofficially started tonight with about 50-75 people meeting to watch  the “DVD viewing party featuring highlights from the 2009 Fascia Congress that took place this past October in Amsterdam (www.fasciacongress.org).  It was sponsored by Tom Myers (Anatomy Trains). I unfortunately got there an hour late as I was working all day and then only stayed for less than an hour.  I was going to say I was late because I was reading the 25 page paper Bodhi Haraldsson posted on his Facebook page in response to my question about what was the MT Foundations Best Practices Symposium.  He was meeting for the last two days with that committee.  I haven’t gotten a chance to read it.  When I do I’ll try to tell you what it is in a paragraph or two!  That is one of my issues/concerns with all this focus on research – They talk like researchers – not massage therapists but maybe it’s just me.  I haven been in massage school in over 21 years and don’t really keep up on the science of it all.  I am more of the feeling type and it seems to work well for me and my clients.

It was already over my head.  I haven’t heard the words collalogen, epimysium, proprioception or fascicle in about 21 years.  From what I was able to gather is that there is some new science regarding muscle contraction but not sure what it really is all about or how or why I even really need to know about it.  I encourage anyone else there to share their comments and perspective on the evenings talk – or are we not supposed to be sharing!

I’ll talk to Ruth tomorrow for sure.

I ran into an old friend from massage school so hopefully we can sit together and talk about what we don’t remember from massage school! (or maybe she has and can fill me in!)

I was able to leave some brochures from Heal-wa.org there for the local WA State Massage Therapists.  We have this great resource here in WA where we can access some of the research databases and other resources online as a part of our licensing fees.  I’ll be writing much more about that too on my other site www.wa-massage-therapy.com/ce as I learn more how to use it and what it can be used for.  I did meet with Valarie Lawrence last week who is the manager of it all.  It is such an amazing resource!